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A Greens senator, her husband and 78 taxpayer-funded flights · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, December eleventh, twenty twenty five. The poorest households
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: are receiving less welfare assistance than they could as the
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  Speaker 1: federal government dumps means tested benefits in favor of universal payments.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The government's considering universal spending on childcare, the NDS and Medicare.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: That's in a new analysis revealed today at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot Com dot U. Trade Minister Don Farrell has flown
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  Speaker 1: his wife a distance equal to halfway to the moon
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  Speaker 1: on taxpayer funds, and Green Senator Sarah Hanson Young has
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  Speaker 1: buried her lobbyist husband to and from Canberra on seventy
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  Speaker 1: eight flights, also funded by taxpayers. Those are just two
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  Speaker 1: of the latest revelations in the growing scandal over MP's
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  Speaker 1: use of legal parliamentary entitlements. And it's all allowed under
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  Speaker 1: the present rules. So do they need to change? That's
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  Speaker 1: today's story. Richard Ferguson is the Australian's Federal Parliamentary Press
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Gallery Bureau Chief and we're talking about the entitlement scandal
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  Speaker 1: that scooping up new politicians every day. It's all been
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  Speaker 1: about Anika Wells in the day's leading up to this.
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  Speaker 1: She's the Minister for Sport and Communications. She's been flying
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  Speaker 1: her husband and children around the country on what are
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  Speaker 1: legitimate family reunion trips. According to her, she's self referred
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  Speaker 1: herself for an order to the independent Orderer. But as
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  Speaker 1: journalists pointed out to her at a press conference on Wednesday,
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  Speaker 1: it's all going to be within the rules. Many of
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  Speaker 1: these trips were pre approved by that independent orderer. So
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  Speaker 1: where are we going to end up?
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  Speaker 2: I think it depends Claire on how far this contagion spreads.
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  Speaker 2: Annika Wells has definitely been the most jaw dropping of
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  Speaker 2: these revelations, you know, constantly taking her husband to Grand
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  Speaker 2: Finals for the AFL, to boxing day tests to f one.
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  Speaker 2: She's a bit of a cut above the rest when
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  Speaker 2: it comes to the outlandishness and the brazenness of some
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  Speaker 2: of these trips. But she's actually not among the most
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  Speaker 2: frequent of these flyers. That definitely in the Labor Cabinet
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  Speaker 2: at least is Don Farrell, whose his trips with his
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  Speaker 2: wife and potentially other family members would accumulate in air
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  Speaker 2: miles to halfway towards the Moon, which is quite extraordinary
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  Speaker 2: when you think about it. That's three point seven times
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  Speaker 2: around the Earth, so that is how much it's over
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  Speaker 2: two hundred and sixty flights for Don Farrell's wife and
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  Speaker 2: potentially other family members. Poor old Anika Wells's husband didn't
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  Speaker 2: get to the moon, but he did get to go
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  Speaker 2: to the Grand Final, which might be better.
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  Speaker 1: Don Farrell is the Minister for Trade and Tourism, so
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  Speaker 1: just like Anika Wells, he's got business reasons to be
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  Speaker 1: flying around the country. You can sort of understand this
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  Speaker 1: idea of family reunion troops being fair enough when, as
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  Speaker 1: Anika Wells does, you have three children under the age
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  Speaker 1: of eight. But Don Farrell is seventy one years old.
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  Speaker 1: The person who is flying around to join him is
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  Speaker 1: his wife. Is it really necessary for taxpayers to be
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  Speaker 1: funding that well.
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  Speaker 2: It's extraordinary because Don Farrell's first statement to The Australian
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  Speaker 2: when we put questions to him about his use of
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  Speaker 2: family reunion travel was that this was a great system
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  Speaker 2: and it was a system that helped young mothers and
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  Speaker 2: single parents and carers be in Parliament. It's an extraordinary
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  Speaker 2: thing for Don Farrell be standing up for young mothers
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  Speaker 2: and carrors. Considering he is the seventy one year old,
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  Speaker 2: feared power broker, so feared they call him the for
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  Speaker 2: him to kind of come out for the single mums
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  Speaker 2: and the cares, I thought, what was fantastic. This speaks
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  Speaker 2: again to the fact that Annaka Wells and Don Farrell
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  Speaker 2: and some of these Green senators can argue that they
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  Speaker 2: were not in breach of the rules. And we've got
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  Speaker 2: to remember that this current system, with this independent Parliamentary
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  Speaker 2: Expenses Authority, was set up because of Susan Lee's extraordinary
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  Speaker 2: flights to the Gold Coast that led her parting ways
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  Speaker 2: with Malcolm Turnbull's cabinet when she was the Health Minister,
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  Speaker 2: and then a whole new system had to be created
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  Speaker 2: by Malcolm Turnbull. So this contagion is going to spread
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  Speaker 2: from the Labor cabinet's already started obviously to the Greens,
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  Speaker 2: and I wouldn't be surprised if it goes further. Annaka
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  Speaker 2: Wells in particular can say all she wants about what
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  Speaker 2: the rules are, what the guidelines are, but is this
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  Speaker 2: passing what we call the pub test. Is this meeting
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  Speaker 2: community expectations? I think she is really strong going to
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  Speaker 2: grapple with that.
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  Speaker 1: The old classic scandal in politics used to be that
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  Speaker 1: you were a family values campaigner and that you were
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  Speaker 1: a nice Christian man, and it turned out you were
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  Speaker 1: having an affair with your secretary, and that that was
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  Speaker 1: the great cliche. Now the cliche seems to be you're
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  Speaker 1: a left wing politician. You come into Parliament with some
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  Speaker 1: kind of log cabin story, either of your own of
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  Speaker 1: growing up in poverty with a single mother, or you're
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  Speaker 1: a member of a trade union like Don Farrell, and
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  Speaker 1: you want to come into politics to help. As they say,
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  Speaker 1: working people get a fair crack of the whip. That's
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  Speaker 1: when it's particularly galling, isn't it when labor politicians and
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  Speaker 1: for example the Greens, who talk a lot about social justice,
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  Speaker 1: about affordable housing, about the cost of living, put their
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  Speaker 1: snouts in the trough.
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  Speaker 2: I think, especially for the Greens Claire, this has been very,
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  Speaker 2: very damaging. You know, they are in a very difficult possession.
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  Speaker 2: There went quite significantly backwards in the election, obviously losing
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  Speaker 2: their leader Adam Bunn and Melbourne to Labor. They've still
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  Speaker 2: got a balance of power in the Senate, but their
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  Speaker 2: position in the public I think is quite damaged and
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  Speaker 2: for this now to affect them, you know, they're supposed
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  Speaker 2: to be the Party of so called integrity and it
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  Speaker 2: turns out that they've been flying people to join them
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  Speaker 2: at protests and music festivals. And then we have the
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  Speaker 2: case of Ben Aquist and the political lobbyist and former
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  Speaker 2: head of the Australian Institute. He is the husband of
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  Speaker 2: Sarah Hanson Young and he has taken multiple trips with
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  Speaker 2: Sarah Hanson Young. We've calculated at The Australian that Sarah
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  Speaker 2: Hanson Young has used family travel at least eighty one times.
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  Speaker 2: You would imagine that Ben Aquist is on quite a
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  Speaker 2: lot of those flights. In fact, one of the flights
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  Speaker 2: that we've logged for Sarah Hanson Young's family reunion travel
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  Speaker 2: on that date, Benoquist was taking photos of coastlines from
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  Speaker 2: an airplane window. So that's interesting. So I think this
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  Speaker 2: is particularly very difficult for the Greens, and this is
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  Speaker 2: very difficult for the Labor Party. This is the first time,
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  Speaker 2: especially with Annika Wells, that the Labor Party has been
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  Speaker 2: under sustained political pressure and not been in control of
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  Speaker 2: the narrative. I think since the MA election I mean
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  Speaker 2: without adult and it's not over a policy issue where
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  Speaker 2: they can easily change course. This is an entire system
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  Speaker 2: which they all use.
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  Speaker 1: They do all use it, and over the years the
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  Speaker 1: argument has been that really they don't earn that much,
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  Speaker 1: that they could all be earning a lot more if
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  Speaker 1: they were in corporate Australia. Now that's changed. Cabinet ministers
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  Speaker 1: are now earning somewhere around four hundred thousand dollars even
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  Speaker 1: lowly back benches and junior ministers are earning well over
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty grand into the two hundred thousands.
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  Speaker 1: It's all a bit fluid because you add in entitlements
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  Speaker 1: and electorate office expenses and all that sort of stuff
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  Speaker 1: to their salaries. But I wonder, though, Richard, do you
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  Speaker 1: think many of these people would actually make it in
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  Speaker 1: corporate Australia or are they the kind of sheltered class
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  Speaker 1: of people who don't really get what it's like out
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  Speaker 1: there in the private sector.
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  Speaker 2: I think there are some examples of obviously people who
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  Speaker 2: have done very well when they've left Parliament. You know,
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  Speaker 2: you think of people like Josh Fridenberg at Golden Sachs.
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  Speaker 2: You think of look Peter Costello up until a point
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  Speaker 2: at Channel nine. You think of Mattias Korman obviously, you know,
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  Speaker 2: in a huge job at the OECD, which he's done
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  Speaker 2: incredibly well, so well that he's been reappointed. But most
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  Speaker 2: politicians find it very difficult to transition into ordinary life,
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  Speaker 2: which was one reason why there was such a generous
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  Speaker 2: parliamentary pension until it was finally kind of killed off
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  Speaker 2: by John Howard in order to keep Mark Latham at
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  Speaker 2: bay around the two thousand and four election. And you know,
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  Speaker 2: we see this with our own former prime ministers all
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  Speaker 2: the time. They get their own offices, their own cars,
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  Speaker 2: they get a lot of entitlements, but as we all know,
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  Speaker 2: especially in this country, except for maybe Julia Gillard, former
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  Speaker 2: prime ministers find it very hard not to cause trouble
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  Speaker 2: and to make their voices heard. Because an MP once
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  Speaker 2: said to me, Claire, when we were talking about people
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  Speaker 2: like Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, it must be very
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  Speaker 2: hard to get over having been the leader of your country.
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  Speaker 2: And I think for a lot of MPs they find
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  Speaker 2: it very hard to have been the MP for their
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  Speaker 2: electorate or a minister, or potentially they could have been
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  Speaker 2: Prime minister. I think there is a disconnect there. I
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  Speaker 2: think there are quite a lot of people, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of them who think, well, I would be a very
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  Speaker 2: successful CEO, would they? I mean a lot of these
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  Speaker 2: people are coming straight, especially in the Libor Party, are
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  Speaker 2: coming straight from the union pipeline, and in the Liberal
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  Speaker 2: Party a lot of them, a lot of them now
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  Speaker 2: are coming straight from the staffer pipeline or the think
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  Speaker 2: tank pipeline. So the idea that you know, they could
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  Speaker 2: all become CEOs, and you know they're doing it much
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  Speaker 2: tougher than CEOs. I think the public find that quite galling.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. Aren't the Grains supposed to be repositioning themselves
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  Speaker 1: as the party of public integrity? Just back to the
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  Speaker 1: Greens for a moment, Richard, because this is such a
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  Speaker 1: great story. Sarah Hanson Young, who is the spokeswoman for
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  Speaker 1: the arts in the Greens party, you know, has built
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  Speaker 1: taxpayers to attend festivals and including her accommodation and tickets
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  Speaker 1: to those festivals where she was making some sort of
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  Speaker 1: announcement about you know, surprise, surprise, the Greens supporting festivals.
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  Speaker 1: She's also flying her husband, beno Quist, who is a
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  Speaker 1: respected longtime former Green staffer he was a prominent staffer
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  Speaker 1: to you know, the kind of patron saint of the Greens,
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  Speaker 1: Bob Brown for many many years. Now he's a lobbyist.
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  Speaker 1: So as the Greens have moved away from the environmental
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  Speaker 1: focus of leaders like Bob Brown and then moved towards
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  Speaker 1: social justice and integrity and issues like that, this becomes
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  Speaker 1: a very acute issue, doesn't it for Sarah Henson Young.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's a very acute issue for Sarah Hanson
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  Speaker 2: Young and Marine Ferruque for flying around her and family
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  Speaker 2: members to join her anti Israel protests and where she's
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  Speaker 2: often next to very unsavory characters. They claim to be
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  Speaker 2: the party of integrity, they claim to be the party
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  Speaker 2: of you know, a stronger National Anti corruption Commission, bringing
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  Speaker 2: down the wretch, all of this nonsense, and here there are.
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  Speaker 2: They're as bad as anyone. You know, they're as bad
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  Speaker 2: as anyone. Once again, they haven't broken the rules, per chance,
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  Speaker 2: But what they have done is broken community expectations and
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  Speaker 2: probably the even higher expectations their own voters would have
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  Speaker 2: for them, considering they've sold themselves as the squeaky clean Greens.
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  Speaker 1: Richard Ferguson is the Australians can be your O chief.
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  Speaker 1: You can read all our reporting on this story right
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au